Games That Defined The Intellivision

[@N7DRONES]

B17 BOMBER was the defining game for me, a sim with voice... for 1982.. amazing

[@richardwhitehead6966]

No one ever seems to mention Space Spartans for the voice module.

[@davebaker7503]

​@@richardwhitehead6966space Spartans was awesome. I'm sad I didn't get it until 1986 in clearance bin because I was starting to get more into the C64 at the time. Didn't get to play it nearly as much as I would have liked.

[@joedimaggio3687]

B-17 Bomber and Sea Battle were the two best games.

[@atomicagegamer3693]

I have a strong memory of being around 5 and being mesmerized by the exploding planet, in Star Strike. It's probably my first video-game memory. I played the C64, way more, as a kid but I also remember playing Intellivision Burger Time, at a friend's house.

[@jmac79ers]

Same here haha, I think it's because I had no idea what I was doing and would always see the planet blow up

[@kevingutteron8431]

Three words... Tron: Deadly Discs!

[@maxpocalypse]

Beauty and the Beast, Lock 'n Chase, Swords and Serpents, Horse Racing, Skiing, Tron Deadly Disks, and many others were mainstays at our place :)

[@Jolt7800]

I hated Intellivision back in the day because of their rivalry with Atari. But like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the two now represent an awesome era.

[@charlesbolin7249]

B-17 Bomber with the Intellivoice add on.

[@rhinox3474]

Treasure of Tarmin was my favorite. I would play it so long my intellivision would over heat and graphics got wonky. So i would put a cup of ice over the power supply spot since it was inside. It worked but i cringe now when i think of it.

[@chemistryguy]

I think that's what went on with my own. I'd be playing D&D Cloudy Mountain when all kinds of random crap would spawn behind the character, sometimes blocking the exit. My friend and I called it 'video garbage'. It added a certain je ne sais quoi

[@maggs131]

Treasure of Tarmin was so ahead of its time trying a first person 3D perspective. I also thoroughly enjoyed the epic sword fight with skeletor lmao. I was am Atari kid and sadly never got to play an intellivision until recently buying and playing these gems. Two stellar titles were thunder castle and Tower of Doom. TC is an amazing game as a knight killing dragons wizards and demons with power ups. Tower of Doom was also way ahead of the time with one of the first RPGs with weapons breaking, inventory and the ability to level up. The intellivision was and still is a phenomenal gaming console

[@candjim]

In the late 1970s/early 80s (UK) I do remember being really impressed with the graphics capability on the Intellivision. Unfortunately, Intellivision was the more expensive option when compared to the Atari 2600.

[@marccaselle8108]

He man for intellivision was awesome.

[@LelandReview]

Great vid !! Utopia was my fav !

[@trepaning]

I had completely forgot about the 2 excellent D&D games.

[@lbjon8469]

Tron Deadly Discs, Baseball, Skiing, Advanced D&D, Burgertime, Lock N Chase, Bump N Jump, Motocross, Football, Demon Attack, Ice Trek

[@koelekahuna9370]

Armor Battle, NFL Football, MLB Baseball, Utopia

[@forcedfeedbackclassicgamer5499]

Power of He-Man really was great.

[@DennyT123]

Imagic''s Microsurgeon is the one game I have a hankering to play. The game had really unique and ambitious premise and the art work really left an impression on me.

[@ScrapKing73]

Imagic made many of my favourite Intellivision releases. I’d add Beauty & the Beast, and especially Atlantis, to the list!

[@The_Real_DCT]

Imagic was to the Intellivison what Activision was to the 2600. They made the best non first party games Microsurgeon, Dracula, Swords and Sorcery, Beauty and the Beast, White water, ect.

[@ScrapKing73]

@@The_Real_DCT 100%. And of all their Intellivision games, I think Atlantis was the very best of the ones I played (far better than the 2600 version). One of these days I really have to check out Atlantis for the Vic-20. White Water? I haven't even HEARD of that, so I definitely have to check it out!

[@mcorleonep]

Space Battle was my favorite Intellivision game that I never got to play at home (Atari kid) as well as baseball when someone else was around. Years later I grew fond of Thunder Castle which I played on the Nintendo DS Intellivision compilation cart. I didn’t know about that one in the early 80’s…

[@KC9UDX]

There's nothing like Space Battle and a loud stereo.

[@Trelgger]

Strong list, especially "Night Stalker". I must say that I'm surprised you didn't include "Thunder Castle" which is one of the most atmospheric games of the era on any system and remains an impactful experience to this day.

[@IsaacKuo]

Thunder Castle didn't get a release until after the Intellivision's heyday, so it's not as well remembered as it should be.

[@SoulBlazer08]

Good list, but I think Utopia has to be here also. There's a reason it's called 'Civilization .05'. :)

[@The_Badseed]

All good games. World series MLB baseball for the intellivoice was incredible with play by play back in the old days

[@williammackenzie4428]

I had B 17 Bomber and Space Spartans for the Intellivoice.

[@atlfan48]

I would add all the one player versions of the big three sports of the day, basketball, football, and baseball. Particularly Slam Dunk given its deep statistical features. I would also add PBA Bowling, If you don't use the get a strike everytime built in hack it is a very challenging and fun game to this day. I love the Intv. I am a one handed disabled gamer and it was the only one of the era's consoles I was truly competitve on. There were so many more of the 125 originals that were solid games. Bump n' Jump was great. Space Hawk, Space Battle, and Horse Racing are also worth a look.

[@williammackenzie4428]

The bowling was fun and the soccer was good. I remember when playing defence in soccer, if you ran out the opposite side with your little man he would appear on the other side of the screen..lol

[@danestegman155]

Good video! I remember getting the Atari 2600 system first years ago, when it first came out! I never seen too much Intellvision systems and games till later on in the early 80's. ! Nice list of classic games for the Intellivsion system!

[@EdGwhaddafook]

Back in the late 70's / early 80's I had two friends who worked at Mattel, one on the Intellivision itself. We played several of the games in the beta versions. I played one originally called Minotaur (release name Treasure of Tarman) the most. We spent what seemed like endless hours playing mostly Triple Action (flying), both Tron games, Baseball, Soccer, Tennis, Bowling, Bomb Squad, Night Stalker and Star Strike.

[@ScrapKing73]

I reminder being amazed by the full screen scrolling of Auto Racing. I couldn’t believe a game could look that good, LOL. Sadly, it was one of several two-player-only games that were very good, but I was a better player than my younger brother and he got frustrated quickly, so I rarely got to play them. I would have loved to have spent more time with Armour Battle, and especially Sea Battle.

[@mattstyles116]

Auto Racing was also unique in that the 5 tracks were all laid out next to each other and if you drove through the trees horizontally from one track you would get to another track. There were also random sections of track here and there, like a curve and a straight that just finished in a dead end. There were lines through the trees left to right etc that if you got your car positioned in it exactly the car would just keep going scrolling past all the tracks. Played too much INTV as a kid back in the day. There's a vid that shows it "The Exploring Auto Racing Project".

[@IsaacKuo]

Auto Racing is the game that made the biggest impression with me. Later, a clone for the Atari 8-bit would enhance it. Rally Speedway had fun little animations of a crashed car bursting on fire, and the panicked driver bailing out - rolling on the ground to put out his flames.

[@joezanolle9822]

My friends growing up wanted it for the sports games, specifically football & baseball. We all did wind up liking Astrosmash & Night Stalker.

[@jengelenm]

I had so many cousins (nephews) in my childhood. I played atari 2600, commodore 64, 128, amiga 600, apple macintosh with them….great times!

[@robbieadams9837]

The Intellivison was my console of choice growing up. The games were cutting edge for the time. Great video! Too bad Tallerico F*CKED up the release of the Amico

[@jmac79ers]

Great video! On my list I would have donkey kong, and lock n chase but only because that's what I remember playing at 4-6 years old lol.

[@thomasloney612]

Wow! I probably can't remember all of the games I played as a kid. Space Hawk, Basketball and Football, Triple Action (we played the biplane game as a family), Tron Deadly Discs, Frog Bog, Bump 'n' Jump, Atlantis, Beauty & the Beast, Dragon Fire, Ice Trek, Empire Strikes Back, among all of the titles from this video! The two D&D games I remember in particular, even though I had no idea what to do in them.

[@ScrapKing73]

Great list. I can’t quibble with any of it. A few of them I didn’t have, but wish I did (especially Shark! Shark!). I’d add Atlantis, Sub Hunt, Lock ‘n’ Chase, Beauty & the Beast, and Swords and Serpents to the list.

[@ScrapKing73]

Oh, and Space Battle, Tron: Deadly Discs, and Triple Action!

[@ScrapKing73]

Oh, and also Space Hawk, Bump ‘n’ Jump, and especially Loco-Motion!

[@ScrapKing73]

Oh, and Carnival! Wow, you’re making me realize what an amazing library the Intellivision had. I wish I’d known that it hadn’t died, that it had lived on with iNTV releasing new games for it, as I would have kept getting more of them.

[@sithcritic8906]

Solid list. I’d probably add Sewer Sam to my version of the list.

[@mikemulcahy52]

Baseball stayed in the console 90% of the time. Had 3 boys and neighborhood kids packed into a small living room. Things got serious when the baseball intro began.

[@Redhawk03a]

Treasure of Tarmin: you just unlocked the deepest core memory man

[@Scotty-Z70]

i remember this game where you were skiing sideways, and if you hit a deer some goddess came out to kill you. i didn't care for the game, but played it over and over because it was Norse Mythology related. I played a ton of Utopia, for some reason. I guess i was at the age that loved it. I loved Space Spartans. in college i got my first PC and made somehow got it to do the "Hello commander, computer reporting" when it booted-up.

[@mattstyles116]

That game was Ice Trek by Imagic. Had 3 stages skiing as mentioned, build the ice bridge which was almost impossible then shoot the ice castle.

[@Scotty-Z70]

@@mattstyles116 yes. I think that was the awful game

[@fpg2004]

Greetings! Nice video 😀 my top 10 intellivision games (no especific order): astrosmash, tron deadly discs, ad&d cloudy mountain, horse racing, poker & blackjack, star strike, auto racing, baseball, night stalker and burger time. There are a lot more and i still play all of them on my original intellivision console!

[@richardrussell5807]

Arghhh!!!, where is B17 Bomber? That was an amazing game.

[@williammackenzie4428]

"bandits 6 o'clock"

[@brandong.1857]

YOOO NSG! Thanks for the new video. Glad to see the weird ole INTV get some love

[@WhitePointerGaming]

A couple of games that I thought were really impressive and quite fun were Scooby Doo's Maze Chase and Mind Strike, which both required the expansion to play. There was also Utopia, which I never really understood as a kid, but that was the first ever RTS on a console and it was quite deep for what it was. The Intellivision port of Q*Bert was also quite impressive and I always liked Thin Ice.

[@dave4shmups]

Great video! I didn’t have an Intellivision when I was a kid, but I got an INTV III about 10 years ago and the best third party game that I’ve played on it is The Dreadnaught Factor. I know it also came out for Atari 8-bit computers and for the 5200, but the Intellivision version plays so well and looks fantastic! I don’t know when we’ll see another compilation of Activision games from the 80’s, but when/if that happens, I would love to see The Dreadnaught Factor on it. I definitely think that it’s Activision’s most underrated game.

[@Scotty-Z70]

the Demon Attack game on this was totally different from the Atari release and was AMAZING.

[@CoolDudeClem]

I once found one of theese in the trash once. It would power on and show the start screen but wouldn't boot any of the games. If my electronics repair skills back then were as good as they are now I could probably have fixed it.

[@joshdobbin]

Fantastic list! I think there should be a supplemental Imagic games lists, though, as they were always the ones that shone brightest on Christmas or birthdays. BEAUTY & THE BEAST, DEMON ATTACK, ATLANTIS, WIZARDS AND WARRIORS and DRACULA were the ones that showed how inventive & offbeat games could be.

[@adm712]

I remember "Hermans Sporting Goods" at the mall, had a running demo of Intellivision Major League Baseball. I begged and begged my parents to buy it. Suffice to say, I was stuck with "Home Run" on my 2600 lol

[@davebaker7503]

My first experience with the Intellivision was with the sports games, especially football and baseball. I played them prior to getting to play the 2600 at my godparents house; they had HR.. and I remember thinking how awful it was 😅

[@burnthepast316]

Pretty excellent list. Agree with most of them. Only thing I'd add is Thunder Castle.

[@Catastrophic-hk3mh]

Baseball, Beauty and the Beast, Sewer Sam, Worm Whomper, Utopia, and Stampede and Donkey Kong and the awesome port of Pac Man

[@CSLucasEpic]

I can't believe that Mattel has not released an Intellivision Classic/Mini plug and play retro console yet.

[@joeborromeo8693]

I loved the D & D games. Truckin’ was also one of my favorites

[@Coyotek4]

I owned the first five on your list (as well as Burgertime). One game I really want to mention: Microsurgeon. Absolutely loved that game back in the day!

[@PaoloBergamo]

I miss AD&D so much as well as Swords and Serpents. Thinking about getting a console just for those!

[@JudeSturman]

Great list! Think I would add Utopia and Tron too…

[@jonnyups2312]

A modern day Utopia is dying to be made. This was the first real time strategy sim and it was done well.

[@JudeSturman]

@@jonnyups2312 100% agree!

[@ThomwoththeWeather]

Tron Deadly Discs, Lock n Chase, Burgertime, Advanced D&D (both), Space Hawk, Demon Attack, and so many already mentioned were my faves. Being 9, well, immersed at the right age when it showed up and I loved it, would play whenever I could, and my mom was playing Royal Dealer as her fave. Flashback to a better time? hmmmm

[@coachlarry6773]

These games are all classic and still fun today

[@kins749]

Night Stalker is THE game for the system, still love it today

[@craigchristiansen4699]

Any list without baseball is incomplete. It sold me on the system as the players actually looked like they were running.

[@samfrito]

Great video and your list feels pretty respectable. I got my Intellivision as they started heading to the clearance aisle, sadly. I really love Dreadnaught Factor and Motocross as well as both D&D games and Tron Deadly Discs. If those games were never introduced I may not love Intellivision as much as I do. And yes, Burger time and Bump n Jump were way more fun than their arcade counterparts.

[@Naqamel]

Other games you didn't mention that you should check out: B-17 Bomber, Tron Deadly Discs, Bomb Squad, Body Slam: Super Pro-Wrestling, Space Spartans and World Series Baseball...

[@Scotty-Z70]

BURGER TIME! I wanted this Intellivision II to play the voice games and the TRON games when i was a kid.

[@Denverdude7]

The Bass in Night Stalker is epic. Dum dum dum dum. Menacing.

[@oswjim]

i got my intelli in 1980 .. my bundle game was checkers

[@davebaker7503]

I still play Tresure of Tarmin on an Intellivision emulatot on an older tablet. Sadly a lot of the other games just dont play well due to the controller being an issue.

[@toasteee252]

If you reas the intellivision wiki you will find out that the way it was built hampered its speed. (Or something like that) but 3rd party developers who bypassed this actually showed the speed of the intellivision. Games like dreadnaught factor is a good example.

[@SatoshiMatrix1]

That Intellivision version of Burgertime is impressive in just how fast it is. Look at even the 5200 "Beef Drop" homebrew or the NES version - this one plays far faster. That said, anytime I want to play BurgerTime I skip any of these and go to Burger Time Deluxe for the GameBoy. It's far, far better.

[@Scotty-Z70]

Star Strike = Star Wars in the trench...well, you just said it before i hit enter, but we always thought that.

[@dcstealth11111]

for me 2 games come to mind is utopia and atlantis I had quite a few but those two along with shark shark and burgertime were played mostly

[@pinebarrenpatriot8289]

Some of their arcade ports were average at best but Burgertime on the Intellivision was one of the best home ports for its time. I would say it's just as good as Burgertime on the more advanced Colecovision imo👍

[@sandal_thong8631]

Looks great! Too bad it came out right around the time of the Video Game Crash of 1983. Game over! I recently learned there was an Intellivision II, but it was just a reboxed version, and had trouble playing some third-party games.

[@pinebarrenpatriot8289]

@@sandal_thong8631 the Intellivision 2 was better because the controllers weren't hard-wired into the console like the original console. If a controller broke on the first Intellivision the owner was screwed. At least you could buy and change controllers with the 2nd Intellivision

[@Alinktome]

What was the intellivision game where we could run the 100m dash, and Olympic sports please? I remember playing it but not the name

[@dallase1]

What about Baseball, Football, Bump 'n' Jump, Space Battle,Sea Battle, B17 Bomber Beauty and The Beast, Dracula ?

[@alkohallick2901]

B17 Bomber

[@johneygd]

More like 10 of my favorite games episode.

[@WSS_the_OG]

My defining games were Baseball, Soccer, Auto Racing (all of those multiplayer PvP), Demon Attack and Astrosmash. While the library for the 2600 was considerably more fleshed out, the quality of the games did seem better on the Intellivision ... but they both look and sound absolutely horrendous by today's standards, haha.

[@Stiffjab71]

Cloudy Mountain looks like sort of a pre-release of ADD for Intellivision. Ciao!

[@JohnnyProctor9]

Good list, I own most of these on mine...

[@GlensRetroShow]

Good solid list 💯

[@rickmontgomery3037]

I very much enjoy these videos of yours, such as this one especially...Thanks to a neighbor friend back in my early teens (i.e. in the early 1980's) I was able to play MLB Baseball, Poker & Blackjack, NASL Soccer, Utopia, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (which I never knew until I watched your video that it was also known as "Cloudy Mountain"), and I believe Astro Smash also, as well as perhaps a few others I can't think of at the moment. In later years I eventually got my own Intellivision, which I still have, and am so fortunate to have been a "kid" back in those days. And excellent point you made about the gameplay of home video systems lasting longer than arcade games, which surely increased the former's popularity, as it literally gave you more bang for your buck, so to speak, than a quarter would for an arcade game where the gameplay may only last a few minutes (which of course just depended on your skill level at that particular game -- e.g. I'd last much longer on a quarter playing Tempest than I would Stargate). Several of the games you featured in this video I'd either never heard of before, or if I had I'd perhaps never played or owned them. I will say that one of the games, Night Stalker, I'd never owned (and I don't think ever played, even to this day), but I did play incessantly the M-Network version for the 2600 which was Dark Caverns. Loved it!

[@Melvin-kq5we]

He-man was my favorite intellivision game..Night stalker too

[@smokinhalf]

I had the VCS if i had known that such games were avalable i would have went mattel

[@jonnyups2312]

A great list but Intellivision baseball needs to be on that list. It was a great game in its day and probably sold more Intellivision systems than any other title due to it's superior graphics and sounds at the time.

[@tete8206]

Sea Battle , Tron Deadly disks, Look and chase.

[@vegassims7]

This was CUTTING EDGE technology back in the day. LOL

[@WordslingingStephen]

One game I think that's missing from this list-- Utopia! (way more interesting than Shark! Shark!)

[@nicolanobili2113]

I like all the games on your list, however I daresay that you should have included at least one sports game. In the early days, the Intellivision released a massive series of sports cartridges, which were clearly superior to the Atari equivalent titles, and which were even advertised on TV, using famous testimonials. In particular, I believe Soccer was the beloved title, at least here in Europe, every Intellivision owner had it.

[@unlimitedfreedom6500]

I need that he man

[@abrannan]

No Tron/Tron Deadly Discs?

[@sandal_thong8631]

The graphics were impressive compared to Atari VCS and Odyssey², but these games (excepting Burger Time and AD&D/Cloudy Mountain) don't look that impressive. I think I did OK with my Atari and got a lot of play out of its games. For long-term success they probably should have gone all-in on their computers, only releasing Pac-Man and other games in 1982 on that platform. Pac-Man fever might have been strong enough for people to run out and buy a computer. They did make money in the short term, but where did it go? Intellivision began losing money around this time, and didn't have a way out of the hole. Coleco spent their money on a failed computer for the ColecoVision and buying the Scrabble & Parcheesi company, while kids would soon tire of Cabbage Patch Kids.

[@midimusicforever]

What about Evel Knievel?! 😁

[@GenXGamerYouTube]

NFL Football 🏈 for me!

[@sandal_thong8631]

When Atari VCS came out in 1977, the two-player game was the thing. And Mattel really advertised their advantage in sports games, which was also due to a controller with more than one button. I know the No Swear Gamer nearly always reviews 1-player games, which is too bad. Unfortunately, starting with Space Invaders, consoles became something you played solo. There was something wrong with the Intellivision that they couldn't program computer AI to play the sports games, like they could on Atari.

[@Dmarcoot]

The controls of the intelivision were so bad I couldn’t play any of them for more than a minute before giving up

[@nathanwanner..44]

Better than the coleco version

[@JustMe99999]

The graphics on the Intellivision are much better than the VCS, but the animations look choppy to me.

[@DougMcDave]

Buuuy sevunteen bowmer!!

[@tonymaurice4157]

King tut was good. Early zelda

[@2001pl]

the best console of this generation, far better games than the 2600 and the Coleco. Nice selection of games in this video, you only miss Utopia, imho

[@2001pl]

@@thomashughes4326 yeah you're right I'm biased :) I do believe that INTV had the "deepest" games, but then it lacked a bit on arcade side. For sure Coleco & Atari had some very good stuff. To me, the INTV was just the better compromise, the best of the lot ;)

[@mikehankins8438]

As an original owner of this system and experienced player, I would say your list is just a list of your personal favorites not at all a list of games that defined the system. No B-17 bomber, not one sports game. Come on.

[@TK-if3ks]

where is tower of doom?????

[@richovaap7482]

Where are the sports games????

[@SomeOrangeCat]

I genuinely feel sorry for the people behind the original Intellvision, and it's games, who lived to see what became of the brand. Imagine someone taking your life's work and not just disrespecting it, but making it radioactive. Ensuring no one ever goes near it again.

[@SBMPLYMA]

Explain

[@datacipher]

⁠@@SBMPLYMAlol. He’s talking about the amico. He’s being histrionic and silly of course. Amico is a train-wreck but the people “behind” INTV (whatever that’s supposed to mean) moved on 30 years ago lol. They got paid then, and it wasn’t their “life’s work” 😂😂. Many went on to do other big things - some in gaming and some not. They also have lives and families. They aren’t losing sleep over amico - that’s the domain of obsessive fanboys.

[@SoulforSale]

That controller...🤮